June 18, 2016

30 Tiger Zoos In Thailand Face Nationwide Checks

This news has been very disturbing. Such animal abuse must be stopped!

Police on June 7 also
found four more live tigers, as well as a slaughterhouse, during a raid on a
house in Kanchanaburi’s Muang district, which has suspected links to wildlife
trafficking and the Tiger Temple.

Deputy national police chief
Chalermkiat Sriworakhan said yesterday he has told officers to inspect more than
30 locations where tigers and wild animals are kept and to verify if they had
sought permission to operate legally.

Gen Chalermkiat said police are
waiting for the results of DNA tests on live tigers and dead cubs found at Wat
Pa Luang Ta Maha Bua, or the Tiger Temple.

If evidence emerges linking the
temple to wildlife trafficking in Laos, he will set up a Royal Thai Police panel
to handle the case. The case is being handled by Kanchanaburi’s Sai Yok
police.

The Department of National Parks,
Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) has found a copy of a document that might
link the Tiger Temple to wildlife trafficking. Authorities seized the photocopy
of a contract involving an exchange of breeding tigers during last week’s
relocation of the big cats from the temple.

The agreement was signed by the
abbot of the Tiger Temple, Phra Wisutthi Sarathera, known as Luang Ta Chan, and
people in Laos, department deputy chief Adisorn Nuchdamrong said. He said the
contract indicates the temple may have been involved in the illegal wildlife
trade.

Lawyers for the Foundation of Wat
Pa Luang Ta Maha Bua said yesterday that the temple abbot will hold a media
briefing tomorrow (June 9) to clarify all accusation.

Also yesterday, armed with a
search warrant, police from the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime
Division raided a house in tambon Wang Dong in Kanchanaburi’s Muang
district.

The search found four tigers –
two males aged 10 and one, and two females, aged 10, and two – kept in cages in
the premises covering more than nine rai. A warehouse for storing tigers’ food,
a large refrigerator, knives and other equipment believed to be used for
relocating tigers were also found in the compound.

Two tiger keepers told police the
tigers belong to house owner Thawat Khachornchaikul, 68, also known as Sia
Tong.

Col Montree Pancharoen, deputy
chief of the police division, said officers had found evidence the house is
linked to trafficking and has served as a transit point for tiger trafficking as
well as a tiger slaughterhouse.

He said authorities believed the
house was also linked to the Tiger Temple, adding that DNA samples of the four
tigers will be compared to those of the tigers relocated from the temple.

A
probe will also be launched to find out if the four tigers were linked to the
three tigers which went missing from the temple in 2014, Col Montree
said.

Meanwhile, the Kanchanaburi land
reform office erected a sign yesterday at the temple’s entrance, warning against
trespass as the office is looking into claims of land misuse, provincial officer
Watcharin Wakamanont said. The temple is also accused of encroaching on forest
areas of almost 1,000 rai.

The Thai authorities had
seen enough. The discovery of 60 dead tiger cubs—frozen or preserved in jars—at
a so-called tiger sanctuary operated by Buddhist monks in Thailand sparked
worldwide outrage, and pressure on the government was mounting to do something.

In recent days, authorities did take action, shutting
down the operation and removing 137
live tigers and more than 1,600 illegal items made from tiger parts. Several
people were arrested on suspicion of wildlife trafficking. Under the guise of a
rescue and conservation organization, the Tiger Temple served as a popular
tourist attraction where, for a fee, members of the public were allowed to walk
among a collection of chained tigers as well as pet and handle both adult and
infant tigers.

It was especially bizarre that
monks could run such an operation, but was this case just a very strange
“one-off”? Unfortunately not. Here in the United States, we too have had a sort
of tiger mania, and it’s been something of a regulatory free-for-all.

As far
back as 2003, The HSUS worked with the California Fish and Game Commission to
help rescue 54 severely neglected and malnourished big cats from a property.
More than 90 tigers were also found dead and the owner was convicted on 56
counts, including 14 felonies.

In October 2011, a deranged
owner of exotic animals released 50 of them into the community – including 18
tigers – in Zanesville, Ohio.
The man, who had just been released from prison, took his own life after
throwing open the gates of his private menagerie, putting the animals and people
at risk. Sheriff’s deputies felt they had no choice and shot the animals roaming
in a populated community, in a grisly scene that few of us will ever
forget.

The cubs were punched, slapped, dragged, and choked. The cubs at Natural Bridge
Zoo in Virginia were never seen by a veterinarian despite the fact that they had
bloody diarrhea from a parasitic infection. Cubs at Tiger Safari in Oklahoma
suffered from ringworm but were still handled by hundreds of people. One of the
most troubling things we learned from these investigations is that excessive
hunger was used to control the cubs during photo ops with the public and they
were also fed a nutritionally deficient diet.

Tiger cubs are typically
discarded once they grow too large for public contact. Some are warehoused in
small cages, sold to circuses, or used to breed more tigers for public handling.
Some die prematurely, such as Maximus and Sarabi, the two cubs used for public
handling during our investigation at Tiger Safari.

Both died before their second
birthdays. Discarded cubs may end up in the pet trade. Last September, an
abandoned, declawed tiger cub was found wandering through a neighborhood in
California. And last April, a pet tiger cub escaped and was discovered hiding in
some bushes in a Texas neighborhood.

Two federal agencies have
recently taken steps to crack down on these cottage tiger-abuse
industries. Under the Endangered
Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a final regulation
closing a regulatory loophole that exempted generic (mixed-breed) tigers from
oversight. Generic tigers are no longer exempt from permitting requirements and
as a result, it will be much harder for roadside zoos and breeders to engage in
commercial activities with captive tigers. In response to a legal petition
drafted by The HSUS, the USDA issued guidance to make clear that allowing the
public to handle tiger cubs four weeks of age or younger violates the Animal
Welfare Act because these vulnerable infants are unable to regulate their body
temperature and they lack a fully functioning immune system to fight off disease
and infection.

To its credit, one roadside zoo in Alabama announced it was
discontinuing tiger cub photo ops as a result of the USDA’s
action.

These regulatory actions may
reduce the U.S. tiger trade, but more work needs to be done to put a stop to it.
A number of facilities continue to offer tiger and lion cub photo ops. We must
be vigilant in educating the public not to patronize these attractions, and in
urging the USDA to prohibit all public contact with big cat cubs, regardless of
age.